


valse mélancolique

by littleleotas



Category: Addams Family (TV 1964), Addams Family - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Family Fluff, Paris (City), bones bones bones, catacombs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:21:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23034484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleleotas/pseuds/littleleotas
Summary: The Addams Family takes a field trip to the Paris Catacombs.
Relationships: Gomez Addams/Morticia Addams
Comments: 10
Kudos: 29
Collections: Froday Flash Fiction Regular Challenges 2020





	valse mélancolique

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leanwellback](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leanwellback/gifts).

> With many thanks to velvetjinx for the prompt.
> 
> For fffc’s ‘macabre’ challenge, and for my Gomez, with whom I cannot wait to visit the Paris catacombs again.

“Ah, Tish,” Gomez said, his arms open wide as he grinned up at the night sky. “A full moon, Paris, and you. No man alive or dead could be happier.”

Morticia stepped out into the clear, cool night, taking Gomez’s hand as she followed his gaze up to the moon. The evening busyness had subsided; the church bells no longer sounded even in an echo, the lights of the most late-night cafes had gone dark, and the streets were empty and silent. “A perfect night for the catacombs, mon amour.”

Gomez sucked in his breath and pressed her hand to his lips. She smiled, brushing a finger down his cheek.

Behind them, Fester and the children stumbled out of the door, arms full of books, balls of yarn, and crystals.

“Careful with the candles!” Grandmama yelled from behind them.

“Mama,” Morticia asked, tilting her head in concern. “Do you really need to bring all of this?”

“Better safe than sorry,” she chirped, dumping another book on top of the stack in Fester’s arms.

“You’ll be sorry when we have to haul all of this _out_ of the catacombs,” grumbled Fester.

Lurch, with Thing perched on his shoulder, pulled the car up to the building and packed Grandmama’s tools in the car. The family climbed inside and set off into the night.

The unclouded sky flooded the city with moonlight. Late autumn trees rustled quietly as the car passed them, as if whispering to themselves. Paris was a kaleidoscope of wonders, something different and beguiling at every time of day and night. That evening, even the latest of night owls seemed to have taken flight, leaving the city deserted for the Addamses’ private use.

“Mother,” Wednesday said, bouncing as the car hit a bump, “How do we know Great-Uncle Roderic is really in the catacombs?”

“Well, I suppose we don’t,” replied Morticia thoughtfully. “The revolutionaries didn’t keep the most thorough of records for those they executed.”

“If he’s down there, I’ll find him,” Grandmama said, calmly hammering a candle into the palm of a Hand of Glory. Thing flinched with each strike.

Lurch parked the car in front of the entrance to the catacombs. Morticia retrieved a picnic basket from the trunk as the rest of the family helped Grandmama with her tools. Once fully laden, they followed Grandmama, who opened the door with her Hand of Glory, and descended the spiral stairs.

All the electric lights for public visitors had been turned off for the night, but luckily, Grandmama had come prepared.

“Not so grumpy about carrying all these candles down here now, are you?” she smirked triumphantly at Fester. “Gomez, match.”

Gomez paused briefly to light a cigar with the requested match before handing it to Grandmama.

“Sure, we needed the candles,” Fester grouchily conceded. “I still say the Latin dictionary was too much.”

“Well, we’ll just see,” Grandmama said in a sing-song voice. She passed out candles, warning the children to be careful of the hot wax.

“Ah, Tish,” Gomez murmured, brushing the backs of his fingers up her arm and resting at her collarbone. “Dripping wax…”

Morticia quirked an eyebrow. “Later, my darling.”

They made their way through seemingly endless dark hallways. Aside from the sound of their own movement, all they could hear was an echoed drip somewhere further ahead to which they never seemed to grow any nearer. Finally, they emerged into a small room, with a stone arch framed by white diamonds painted on black posts.

Morticia lifted her candle to read the words over the arch. “Arrête! C'est ici l'empire de la mort.”

“Tish,” Gomez whispered, his breath shaky as he kissed her hand, her wrist, and on up her arm.

“Lurch, why don’t you go ahead with the children?” Morticia asked, gently stopping Gomez in his tracks. “We’ll meet up with you for our picnic later.”

Lurch grunted, taking Wednesday’s hand in his free one and crouching to fit through the arch. Pugsley followed, dragging a set of manacles behind him.

Morticia turned back to Grandmama, who was sorting her things with Fester. “What can I help you with, Mama?”

Grandmama flipped pages in the book open in front of her, running her finger down the pages as she scanned them. “We can take it from here, Morticia. You and Gomez go have fun.” Without looking up from her book, she shooed them away.

Turning to Morticia with a smile, he held out his hand. “Querida?”

She delicately placed her fingers into his open hand, and they walked through the arch and into the depths of the catacombs.

* * *

“Wednesday, wait up!” Pugsley gasped as he ran behind her, tripping over his dragging manacles.

Lurch groaned anxiously, ducking as he attempted to speed-walk through the low-ceilinged passages. The light from Wednesday’s candle was still visible ahead, but she would quickly outpace him and Pugsley unless she slowed down.

“Uncle Roderic!” Wednesday yelled, her voice echoing off miles of bone. It was a duller echo than stone, without the ringing of vastness that even small stone passages convey. The bones caught her voice and threw it back to her in a close reply.

She paused to hold her candle close to a wall of skulls. The moving source of light cast dancing shadows over the bones, the faces seeming to change, stretch, and shrink as the flame flickered.

Behind her, the bones shifted with a soft ‘clack.’ She whirled around, catching the tail end of a mouse scampering away from the wall of bones and around the corner. Investigating further, she saw several more mice crawling in and on top of the pile as she walked with her candle held high.

Panting, Pugsley finally caught up with her. He peered over her shoulder, following the candle’s illumination. “What is it, Wednesday?”

“Nothing,” she replied. “Come on.”

They walked together down the passage, followed by Lurch, and turned into a small curve set back from the main passage. A plaque hung beneath two skulls, and Wednesday held her candle up to the words.

Wednesday frowned in concentration. “It’s in Latin.”

“What does it say?” Pugsley asked.

She read aloud slowly. “Quod seminas non viv—”

A clack like the shifting of bones sounded through the passage from further ahead. Wednesday turned her head toward it; no doubt it was more mice running along the skeletal walls. She turned back to the plaque and continued. “Vivif—vivificatur, nisi—”

The rattle sounded again: closer, this time, and longer.

Wednesday turned around fully, holding the candle up toward the source of the sound. “Uncle Roderic?”

The rattling intensified, filling the narrow chamber with echoing clacks. Pugsley gasped excitedly, gripping Lurch’s hand. Thing shuddered on Lurch’s shoulder. Wednesday’s eyes widened as she stared expectantly into the dark just beyond the light’s reach.

“I’m afraid I’m not your uncle,” a hoarse voice said, and into the light stepped an upright, ambulatory skeleton.

* * *

Gomez and Morticia strolled leisurely through the catacombs, arm-in-arm. Morticia always found their cemetery walks peaceful and rejuvenating, but the cold, still air of the underground catacombs was especially calming. Time stood still for them as they gazed into each other’s eyes by candlelight.

Morticia placed the candle in a holder attached to a pillar. “Isn’t it too enchanting?” she asked in a breathless whisper, looking at the wall of bones beside her. Skulls were set into the wall of leg bones, arranged in the shape of a heart.

“Indeed you are,” Gomez said, moving her hair aside and kissing her neck from behind her.

She smiled, reaching up to pat his cheek. “It’s giving me lovely ideas for the house.”

“There’s nothing as homey as catacombs,” he agreed, quickly resuming peppering her with kisses.

Morticia closed her eyes and savoured the moment. She knew just how lucky she was to live such a life as hers, filled with love and the exuberant joy of living, grasping each fleeting moment in the face of the exciting promise of eternity. She was beneath the most beautiful city in the world, with the people she loved more than anything in the world, surrounded by love and comforting, enveloping darkness.

She turned in Gomez’s arms, wrapping hers behind his neck. Blood pulsed in her barely parted lips. Even as close as they were, they were still too far apart for her liking.

“Mon amour,” she murmured.

“Cara mia,” he whispered in return, nearly swallowing the words as their lips met. He dipped her low, hungrily pressing her body to his. Cognac on his tongue beneath the taste of cigar smoke sweetened his enthusiastic kiss.

In the tunnels behind them, Fester’s voice carried ahead, grumbling indecipherable protests at Grandmama. Gomez and Morticia broke apart just enough to look each other in the eyes, sharing a laugh.

“Querida,” he said, as he helped her back to the feet off of which he had swept her, “Seems we must keep moving if we wish to prolong our privacy.”

* * *

“I’d like to see _you_ find one particular skeleton in here,” Grandmama retorted, picking at the yarn in the ball she was working on unraveling. “It’s like trying to pick one feather off one crow in a murder.”

“Well, if you can’t do it—”

“I can do it! It just takes time. Here, hold this,” she snapped, thrusting the yarn into Fester’s hands. “Don’t let it tangle.”

Arranging the candles in a circle, she sat in the centre with a large black leather-bound book in her lap and used one of the candles to light the rest. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Fester, tie that yarn to something and hand me the other end.”

Fester looked around, turning slowly in a circle on the spot. There wasn’t much of anything but bones nearby, but he supposed that would have to do. He tied the yarn around the end of a bone protruding slightly from the pile and put the other end in Grandmama’s hand.

She opened her eyes and ran her finger down the page in the book in front of her until she found the right passage. She tapped it twice, then began reading.

Fester’s eyes glazed over at the long string of Latin, but he perked up when he heard words he recognised.

“Roderic Addams!” Grandmama stood suddenly, letting the book fall to the ground as she raised her hands in the air. “Show yourself to us!”

There was silence as she stood with her eyes closed.

Fester cleared his throat. “I don’t think—”

“Shh!” Grandmama hissed. She scrunched her closed eyes, listening intently. Fester heard nothing, but Grandmama seemed to. Her expression eased and she turned, stepping carefully outside the circle with the yarn in her hand, and began to walk. She disappeared from sight, and the yarn grew more and more taut. The bone to which Fester had attached the other end of the yarn budged with a squeak from its place in the centre of a tall stack of bones.

“Uh oh,” said Fester.

* * *

The skeleton standing in front of Wednesday, Pugsley, Lurch, and Thing made a courtly bow. “How do you do,” he said with a genteel, lightly-accented air.

“How do you do,” Wednesday and Pugsley echoed, staring at him as they bobbed in a quick curtsey and bow respectively.

“I would introduce myself,” the skeleton said, “But I’m afraid I don’t truly remember who I am anymore.”

Wednesday took a step closer to him, squinting as she looked him up and down. “Who brought you back?”

The skeleton sighed irritably. “Oh, who knows. People are always running around down here, yelling out bits and pieces of Latin they don’t understand. That’s dangerous, you know.”

“We know,” Pugsley said. “Mother always taught us to be careful with languages we don’t know.”

“And yet, I believe I heard a little voice reading something just a moment ago.”

There was no skin on the skeleton, but Wednesday got the curious feeling that the skeleton was raising its non-existent eyebrows at her. “I can read Latin,” she said coolly.

The skeleton gave a Gallic shrug. “Ah, well then. It wasn’t anything you shouldn’t read, anyway.”

It wasn’t until he shrugged that Wednesday noticed the skeleton wasn’t whole. His left arm below the humerus was missing.

He followed her gaze. “Yes, I am still trying to put myself back together. Since I was awoken I have been searching for my missing pieces.”

“Don’t people see you?”

“I collapse when visitors come through. No one thinks anything of another pile of bones on the floor in here.”

Wednesday nodded thoughtfully. She had seen several piles of bones set away from the main thoroughfare, but had thought nothing of it. She wondered, now, if all of them were as lifeless as they had first seemed.

“Speaking of visitors,” the skeleton continued, tapping the fingers of his one hand against his jaw. “It is outside of operating hours, no? What are you doing down here?”

“We’re looking for our Great-Uncle Roderic Addams,” Wednesday replied. “He was beheaded in the Revolution. Do you know him?”

“Mm.” The skeleton shook his skull. “I am afraid not. I may have, once, but I don’t remember.”

“That’s alright,” said Pugsley. “Grandmama will find him.”

A great clattering sound like a falling tower of bones echoed through the passageways. Thing jumped in fright, hovering over Lurch’s shoulder for a second before dropping back onto it. He scampered down Lurch’s back and away, disappearing into the dark around the corner. Lurch groaned.

“I suppose Thing’s gone to investigate,” Wednesday said. She held her candle up in the direction in which Thing left, but when he didn’t immediately return, she turned back to the skeleton. “Anyway, maybe we can help you find your arm.”

“Oh, thank you, dear child, but I don’t expect so.” He sighed deeply, somehow. “I have been searching for longer than you’ve been alive.”

“Then you’ve narrowed down the places it could be.”

“This is true,” the skeleton agreed. “Well, I suppose it couldn’t hurt. But you mustn’t stay away from your Grandmama for too long. I simply will not allow it.”

“Deal,” said Wednesday, holding out her hand.

The skeleton chuckled and shook her hand delicately. “Come, this way.”

Pugsley, Wednesday, Lurch, and the skeleton searched along a stretch of the catacombs lined almost exclusively with limb bones. Pugsley excitedly grabbed several leg bones, frowning with disappointment when they inevitably did not fit. Wednesday’s picks were at least the correct kind of bone, if not the correct bone itself.

“Oh, it’s no use.” The skeleton sank to the ground, forlornly stretching out his intact limbs. “It is a lost cause, mes amis.”

Wednesday crouched down and patted the skeleton’s shoulder blade. “I’m sure you’ll find it one day.”

The tapping of Thing’s fingers as he ran through the passageways was followed by the sound of something dragging on the dirt floor. Everyone in the search party looked up hopefully in the direction from which the sound came. Thing rounded the corner with a length of yarn tied around his pointer finger, and behind him, tied to the other end of the yarn, he dragged a skeletal arm, its hand still attached.

“Thing! You found it!” exclaimed Pugsley.

Wednesday gasped, but then paused, biting her lip. Looking up at the skeleton, she asked, “Is that the right one, Monsieur?”

With trembling fingers, the skeleton untied the yarn, as solemnly as if performing a ritual. He held it up in the light from Wednesday’s candle before attempting to put it in place. It clicked, and he flexed all ten of his fingers.

“Ah, Thing! I cannot find the words to thank you.” The skeleton’s voice sounded choked up, though he could not cry. He placed his hand on his heart as he looked around at them each in turn. “All of you Addamses, you have my eternal gratitude.”

“Come with us,” Wednesday said. “We’re having a picnic with our family once we find Uncle Roderic.”

“But Wednesday,” Pugsley said in a hushed voice. “We haven’t packed enough food for one more.”

Wednesday stared at Pugsley, but his earnest expression did not change. She shook her head, then turned back to the skeleton. “Please come. I’m sure Grandmama would love to meet you.”

Laughing, the skeleton took the children’s hands in his own as they walked back down the passageway. “I am sure I will love meeting her, too.”

* * *

Deeper in the catacombs, the passages grew larger. The ground slanted as the tunnels went lower into the earth, and the widened chambers held a thicker darkness than the close, narrow ones. Morticia stretched her arms out into the plush abyss and hummed in delight as the dark swallowed her hands.

Gomez, holding their candle, sighed as he gazed at her. “Tish, you’re a vision.”

She turned around and caught sight of the walls of bones just visible behind Gomez. “The catacombs are almost as captivating as you, mon sauvage.”

With a small whimper in his chest, he fell to his knees at her side, kissing her hand and making his way up her arm.

She smiled. She almost didn’t want to leave the catacombs, so beautiful and comfortable as they were. A thought had been working its way through her thoughts, and with her last sentence, she realised she could finally sort it into words. “Darling,” she said, frowning pensively as he kissed her shoulder. “Do you think we should have an ossuary? For the family?”

“Ah, querida mia, you’re so thoughtful.” He brushed her hair aside and kissed her neck. “But as much as I love my family, my bones are only meant to lie for eternity with yours.”

He wrapped his arms around her waist, and she pressed her arms on top of his. The candle, dropped in the throes of passion and immediately forgotten, extinguished, and the delicious darkness enveloped them like a thick blanket.

“Found him!” Grandmama’s voice echoed from the distance.

“We’ll be along in a minute,” Morticia yelled back.

“Make it ten,” Gomez added.

* * *

Uncle Roderic’s skull sat in the place of honour atop the emptied picnic basket as the family passed around large bowls of henbane soup and eye of newt. The skeleton sat between Wednesday and Pugsley, holding a smoking cigar.

“Monsieur Addams,” the skeleton said. “Truly your family’s hospitality is unparalleled. I have not had such a fine cigar in many decades.”

Gomez grinned, a matching cigar held between his teeth. “Glad to provide, old man.”

“I wish we could have found the rest of Uncle Roderic,” Fester sighed before taking a large spoonful of eye of newt.

“It’s very hard to find all of someone down here,” Wednesday said. “Our friend here looked for his missing arm for ages.”

Morticia rested her chin against her hand, with one finger touching her cheek. “I’m so sorry, what did you say your name was?”

The skeleton shrugged. “I didn’t. I no longer remember it, I’m afraid.”

Morticia tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “You know, you remind me so much of our cousin Ennui.”

“Oh yes!” Grandmama’s eyes widened. “Yes, we haven’t heard from Ennui in so long.”

Morticia’s stare intensified as she struggled to discern distinguishing features of the skeleton. “It is difficult to tell without his nose.”

“Oh I’m sure he’s Cousin Ennui,” Wednesday said. “I knew he had to be one of us right from the beginning.”

“Even if he isn’t, he could be now,” Pugsley said, not looking up from his soup.

“Of course he is!” Gomez clapped with excitement. “Cousin Ennui, at long last!”

The skeleton’s jaw bone quivered as he put a hand on his sternum. “My family.”

Wednesday took Ennui’s hand, grinning. “You’ll come home with us, won’t you?”

Ennui patted her head. “I’m quite happy where I am, ma petite. But perhaps I will visit.”

“And we’ll visit you, dear Ennui,” Morticia said warmly. “I’m always happy to have more reasons to visit Paris.”

“Mais oui,” Gomez said, lifting his wine glass.

Morticia’s jaw dropped in a perfect ‘o’ as she looked at him. “Gomez, that was French.”

He winked roguishly, taking her hand and raising it to his lips.

“To the Addamses!” Grandmama lifted her glass, and everyone in the circle followed suit.

“To us!” Pugsley cheered.

“To us,” Ennui echoed, and the clinking of their glasses and the ringing of their laughter echoed through the dark tunnels of the catacombs.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like Cousin Ennui was an actual character but I can’t find anything on them and my DVDs are in another country so. Sorry if I messed with canon I just thought there should be an Addams named Ennui if there wasn’t already.
> 
> I’m on Dreamwidth/Pillowfort/Twitter as littleleotas ♥


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